


Purpose

by whichstiel



Series: Season 13 Codas [15]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Episode: s13e14 Good Intentions, Gen, Good Intentions, spn 13x14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 11:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13856676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: The light from the windows filters in gray like the dust that chokes this world. Patterns fall in wide, soft blocks across Mary’s skin. She imagines that she is two dimensional, a paper cut-out laid across the floor along a grid.





	Purpose

**I.**

The light from the windows filters in gray like the dust that chokes this world. Patterns fall in wide, soft blocks across Mary’s skin. She imagines that she is two dimensional, a paper cut-out laid across the floor along a grid. Her eyes track dust motes. 

Her days are routine. At dawn she pulls herself from the floor, bones stiff from uncomfortable sleep. There’s condensation on the bars most days and Mary has been held captive long enough to smell the shift in the air and jolt awake when it’s time to press her mouth to the metal. The iron mingles with the constant taste of blood on her tongue. She tastes it now as she presses her tongue against the backs of her teeth. There will be torture today; the only question is when. Will the sky be bright, or dim, or red with distant fires on the night horizon? Mary rests her head against the wall, smacks her swollen mouth, and counts the dust as it drifts down. 

**II.**

Stars shine from the overcast sky, visible through the bare branches and shimmering wardings in Bobby’s camp. Mary settles back against the tree with her fingers laced through the handle of a battered tin mug. The mug rises slowly and falls where it rests on her chest. Away from Michael’s barred and warded church the air seems cleaner. “Sometimes I think I’m forgetting it. The smell of plants and air that isn’t full of ash. Like my world was just a dream I had.”

Bobby grunts in reply and punctuates it with the liquid splash of alcohol. Mary laughs, low and short. “Sorry. Guess it’s been a while. Lost my tolerance.” She taps her finger against the cup. “And this is sure something else.”

“Maddie brews it,” Bobby says with a huffed laugh. “I’ll pass your compliments to the chef.”

“Please do,” Mary says, like she’s patronizing an upper crust restaurant. She runs her tongue along her liquor numbed lip and contemplates closing her eyes and trying to force herself to sleep. Jack rests nearby, twitching in his sleep like a frightened animal. It doesn’t feel right to rest while he’s in danger - both from Michael stalking them like they’re sport and from Bobby’s ice-cold contemplation. In a few hours they’ll be on the run again, away from the protected camp. Her skin buzzes.

The camp at night feels strange and still, like everything on this world. Mary rolls her head against the tree, feeling her hair catch on the rough whorls of bark. That feels the same, but everything else is different from all her nights on Earth spent hunting. There are no distant owls calling to one another. No crickets chirping, or frogs.  _ Just humans and cockroaches _ , Mary thinks. Just like her ninth grade teacher used to tell her about a post-nuclear-fallout world. The bottom and the top of the food chain, both scuttling around digging for scraps. She should feel sad about this. Maybe it’s the liquor burning her chest, but she looks around at the banked fires of the camp and for the first time she feels something like hope. 

“I used to think my life was shit,” Mary finally says. “Some kind of cosmic joke. Born into a family of hunters. Exposed to blood and horror before I could read. I spent my whole life trying to run away from it. And when I failed it was like the ultimate sentence passed on my head. The demon deals. The choices I made.” She frowns and finishes the cup, setting it down on the cracked earth beside her. “I always felt like I’d brought it on myself. Turning my back on my past. It was like I’d invented a family curse that just fell and fell and fell on all of us.” Mary laces her hands across her chest. “Maybe there’s a better world out there, I don’t know. But I think--”

A low snore rattles at her side and Mary turns her head to see Bobby slumped down, chin to chest. In sleep he looks both softer and younger. Mary wonders what she was to him in this world, before she died. She rolls to check on Jack once more; the need to see him safely back home pulses like instinct. His eyes are open and when he catches her looking he smiles. “You should sleep,” he tells her earnestly. “I’ll keep watch.”

“You’re right,” Mary says. “I should.” 

She doesn’t.

**III.**

She teaches Jack to hunt in a way she never wanted to teach her own boys. He’s a quick learner and Mary suspects it’s an inherent part of him. He’d likely be just as at home learning something delicately mundane as he is tracking and killing angels. She teaches him how to read the sky and track footprints. Although his powers are still a mystery to them both, she does what she can to teach him to use them.

Together they push his powers and he fills the sallow woods with golden light that seems like a reflection of his pure soul. Their quest to kill Michael weighs on him and Mary talks to Jack about it in the quiet as they lie low from humans and angels alike. She grew up with blood on her hands, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever been easy on her. 

“Okay,” Mary says now. Jack stands across from her in a recently charred clearing which was burned from a lightning-triggered fire that has been sweeping a bright line through the mountains. Ash floats up with every footstep. There’s a little sunlight straining through the clouds turning the tops of the trees a muted gold. “They’ve disarmed you. What do you do?”

“Use my powers.” Jack stares at her with a deadpan expression which slips into a wry grin under the weight of Mary’s glare. 

“Jack,” she says, half in warning and half in amusement. 

“If my powers are incapacitated,” Jack says dutifully, “I use defensive moves first to try to escape and run. If I can’t run, aim for the eyes and the well of grace in the throat. If my attacker is human...blow to the throat or the groin. Grab and twist.” He demonstrates the hand-to-hand techniques Mary’s been showing him, perfectly dancing through attacks and evasions.

Purpose fills their hours and for the first time, purpose doesn’t feel like a yoke on her shoulders. “Do it again,” Mary instructs and together, they work.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


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